This week Noelle and I took on the challenge of capturing the best yum dance Orange County had to offer. If you’re wondering what a yum dance is, it’s the joyous reaction someone incurs when they eat a delicious piece of Tillamook Cheese!

We see hundreds of people every week, most of whom LOVE cheese. So we figured if there was a winning yum dance to be found, we could definitely find it at the Loaf Love Tour sampling kiosk! Megan and Casey took home the crown this week for their yumtastic, baby loaf juggling, dancing routine!

By Coy

5 lbs of Shredded Tillamook Cheese can make room for savings and many tasty meals!

As a Tillamook Cheese Brand Ambassador, you get to interact with thousands of amazing people every week. Everyone has their own unique story, and we love hearing what everyone has to share, especially when it involves a memory of Tillamook Cheese! One thing I love about Tillamook products is that there are endless ways to enjoy them. I absolutely love hearing when someone has a new, creative, or delicious way to put one of our products to good use. What makes it even better, is when it’s simple. These 3 ideas have been my absolute favorites of the year!

Everybody knows that the more you buy, the better savings you receive. The problem is that when you’re only feeding a few people, some of those bigger packages that are such a great deal, don’t stay fresh long enough to be used completely. That was exactly the case when I saw our 5 pound bags of shreds. It was an amazing price for pre-shredded cheese, but how could someone use all that cheese in a short amount of time? Luckily it only took a few questions to people at the grocery store to find out the answer, freeze it! Apparently when you freeze a bag of shredded cheese, the shreds stay mostly separated, and you are able to just pull handfuls of cheese from your bag of frozen cheese shreds! Just sprinkle that handful of frozen cheese shreds on your favorite dish, heat up the whole dish, and you’re good to go! Most people I talked to said they do this, and they can pull from the same package for months. It may change the texture a tiny bit, but it will still be delicious!

The taste, and texture of our Medium Cheddar Cheese can’t be beat (it WAS voted the World’s Best Medium Cheddar Cheese after all). It is an all around delicious cheese, and I love how you can use it in just about any dish that calls for cheese, and it turns out great. Although while we were in Texas, we found out that our Pepper Jack Cheese was the real winner there. Texans love their spice, and our pepper jack hit the spot for them. We found a lot of people that took recipes that you would normally call for all cheddar cheese - like mac and cheese - and they started substituting a third, or even half of the cheddar cheese for some pepper jack! It adds a little extra spice, and creaminess to whatever dish you’re cooking up, and every time I’ve tried it, it’s turned out amazing! I personally use this combo every morning in my scrambled eggs, and it is my new favorite.

I’ve previously confessed that I have just about the biggest sweet tooth of anyone I know. So as soon as I heard this idea, I knew I would love it! As most people have noticed, self serve frozen yogurt places are all the rage right now. It’s a lower calorie way to satisfy your frozen treat craving. People have even started making their own Tillamook frozen yogurt! All you need to do is pop a couple of your favorite Tillamook Yogurt flavors (Country Orange Cream anybody?) into the freezer, wait over night, and next thing you know you have a delicious treat, with a lot fewer calories.

Those are my 3 new favorite ways to use Tillamook products! What are yours? Be sure to let us know in the comments, or by telling us on Twitter: @TillamookCheese and @CheddarCoy

By Coy

If there is one thing I’ve learned while on the Loaf Love Tour, it’s to expect the unexpected. When you’re living on the road, there seems to always be a new challenge or an unexpected event to spice things up! Our stay in San Antonio, Texas, was no different.

At the beginning of each week, we rotate partners and prep our Baby Loaf Buses for the coming week of work. This week, my partner was none other than Dandy Andy! We went through the usual checklist (smile sticks, buttons, coupons, cheese, etc.) to make sure we were ready to share the loaf, and then we were on our way.  We decided that Dandy Andy was going to be the driver, and I was going to be the navigator.

The drive started off as usual with a few waves to fellow motorists, honking and smiling at entertained pedestrians, and even handing out a few coupons to people at stop lights. It wasn’t long after one of those friendly interactions at a stop light, when the unexpected happened.

Now when we drive these buses around, we are pretty used to cars coming up in our rear view mirrors at a pace much quicker than our own - due to the fact that they only go around 40 mph. Dandy Andy was the first to notice, there was a police car moving at a quicker than normal pace, pulling up behind us in our rear view mirror. He pointed it out to me and was curious if it seemed unusual how quickly the police officer was gaining on us. It definitely was, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, we’re driving a little orange bus that couldn’t speed, even if it wanted to!  What could a cop possibly want with us? As soon as I finished my thought, we heard a noise come from behind us. It’s the police car’s loud speaker. He barks at us “You Oregonians need to pull over, NOW!”.

All confidence that we had done nothing wrong went out the window. Dandy Andy and I quickly started going through every possible thing that could lead to us getting pulled over in the great state of Texas. We calmly pulled over into a nearby parking lot and started looking for our license and registration. As the officer reaches our driver side window, he says “Is this thing street legal?”  Still unsure what he was getting at, we start to show him our registration. When he saw the worried look on our faces, he cracked a big smile and said “I’m just joking with you guys, I just wanted to check out your car. This thing is AWESOME!”. Dandy Andy and I look at each other and couldn’t help but laugh at our panic from moments earlier.

We ended up joking around with the police officers, talking to them about how our buses were made, as well as the history of our cheese. It turns out, the officer had seen us on the news a couple days ago, and he had been seeing our Texas Meets Tillamook ads on TV. He asked if he could take a picture of our bus, and we thought it would be fun to capture the whole moment. We had him pull his car next to ours and turn his lights on. After we got a picture with them, they asked us where we were going. We told them it was an H.E.B. nearby. He said “Oh I know exactly where that is! Follow me, I’ll show you the way.” We gladly accepted the offer of a police escort and off we went!

As he was driving off, I couldn’t help but think how lucky I am to be a Tillamook Cheese Brand Ambassador. I have an amazing job that gives me awesome experiences like meeting the officers in Texas and each day I’m grateful to our police, fire, and military for their service. So this 4th of July I want to say “thank you!” to the men and women who serve us!

See you motoring down the road!

Cheddar Coy

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By Coy

My buddy Loafy at the Houston Zoo!

The Loaf Love Tour is in Houston! What better to celebrate than treating all the Houston Zoo goers to some all natural Tillamook Cheese on Earth Day?

The zoo was buzzing with excitement from the get go. There was a little bit of everything going on. From the hundreds of people doing the “Walk With Me” 5k family fun walk, to all the kids running around trying to complete their Tillamook Cheese scavenger hunt bingo; I bet that even the animals could sense this was not your ordinary day at the zoo!

Not only was this an unusual day for the zoo, this was a special day for me too! I got the privilege of being Loafy’s handler. That means I was able to not only spend some quality time with everyone’s favorite loaf of Medium Cheddar Cheese, but I was also able to explore the amazing Houston Zoo. Loafy and I had some great moments, but I’d have to say our favorite was seeing Jonathan the lion! After seeing Jonathan’s big teeth, Loafy was hoping that lions didn’t like Tillamook Cheese as much as everyone else at the Zoo did!

After giving out more 9,000 samples of Tillamook Cheese, thousands of smile sticks, and countless coupon booklets, I’d have to say the kick off to our stay here in Houston was a total success. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see us! I’m excited to find out what else Houston has in store for the Loaf Love Tour.

- CheddarCoy

Samples, samples and more samples!

By Coy

One of Arizona’s biggest super fans, James!

Boy oh boy, is February over already? The old saying, time flies when you’re having fun, definitely applied to our stay here in sunny Arizona! I’m not sure if Arizona was just ecstatic to have the Loaf Love Tour in town or if Februarys are always this beautiful, but we couldn’t have asked for better weather. With only one exception:

Snow at the Grand Canyon!

The crew and I definitely didn’t expect the snowy weather when we finally visited the Grand Canyon, but it didn’t change the fact that it was hands down one of the most amazing experiences.  It almost felt like a shame to take pictures, because there was no way they could do the beautiful view justice.  If you haven’t been already, the Grand Canyon is definitely a trip you need to add to your bucket list!

One of my most unique and unexpected experiences in Arizona was the opportunity to meet tons of snowbirds (who, by the way, can’t get enough of their Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar). It was awesome to meet so many people from the North that love to travel and were kind enough to share their recommendations for things to see in the area. One thing the crew and I kept hearing over and over was this: Climb Camelback! Camelback, for those who don’t know, is a mountain that gets its name from its shape. It also provides what has to be one of the best views of Phoenix.

The hike definitely put our legs to the test, but we all made it!

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us at all of our different events. Those of you who rocked the awesome orange at the Phoenix Zoo and the great staff at our Taco Week restaurants: you were beyond amazing and made this first month of the Loaf Love Tour unforgettable! To anyone who stopped by the tent to share your favorite Tillamook story, try a few samples of cheese, ask us “What IS Tillamook?”, or give us recommendations of your favorite places – THANK YOU! You gave our next stop, Texas, a lot to live up to!

-Coy, Loaf Love Tour Brand Ambassador

Follow me on Twitter @CheddarCoy

By Coy

Some of our Phoenix Zoo fans saying "cheese!" with Loafy.

As a Tillamook Brand Ambassador, there isn’t a day I look forward to more than our kick-off events. Today was a special treat. Not only was it our kick off event for our stay in sunny Phoenix, it marked the beginning of Tillamook’s 2012 Loaf Love Tour!

Every time we enter a new area we enjoy finding a great place to visit with our current Tillamook fans, as well as introduce our cheesy goodness to Tillamook fans of the future. This year we were excited to motor the Baby Loaf Buses back to the Phoenix Zoo! We came bearing fun including happy sticks, buttons, coupons, Zoo bingo, and of course tons of our most popular award-winning cheese. Just in case all that wasn’t enough to have you racing down to see us (but did I really have to say any more than FREE Tillamook cheese?!) we threw in free admission to the first 100 people wearing their most vibrant Tillamook orange. Suffice it to say, it was an exciting day!

While I started off my busy morning waking up at an hour I was sure preceded even the most active zoo animals, I still couldn’t out do the dedication of some of our orange clad Tillamook fans. They arrived an hour and a half before the gates even opened! No matter where we go, people LOVE Tillamook. Just the day before, I met a Mom and her daughter at a Mesa WalMart store. When I arrived at the zoo the next day they greeted me first thing with a big “hello” in their bright orange shirts! All day long I heard fond memories of Cheese Factory visits, saw kids sharing hugs with Loafy, and I got to see the pure enjoyment someone has when trying our cheese for the very first time. Did you know Phoenix fans really prefer the World’s Best Medium Cheddar? We nearly ran out!

After today, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the 2012 Loaf Love Tour has in store for our team. You can click here to see where we’re headed. See you on the road!

Cheddar Coy
Follow me on Twitter: @cheddarcoy

By Coy